Italian General Military Prosecutor
at the Supreme Court
Dr. Maurizio Block was born in Naples, on September 9, 1957.
On finishing high school in 1976, he received a diploma in classical studies.
He enrolled at the University of Naples to study law and graduated with honours in July 1980.
In March 1981, after successfully passing the State competition, to fulfill his military service requirements, he attended the Guardia di Finanza Academy as Naval School officer in Gaeta.
He passed the State selection to join the Military Judiciary, where he started working in November 1982.
After being assigned to the Military Court in Padua and finishing the trial period, he took his seat in Court and – for certain periods – he was an investigating judge and a pre-trial hearing judge, until July 1996. During this period, he drafted judgments for delicate cases, both due to the difficulty of the legal matters and to the high position of the defendants involved in the investigations.
He has written many constitutional ordinance, which, on being adopted by the Supreme Court, had the result of abolishing many rules of the ancient military criminal code.
In November 1995, he gained the right to hear cases in the Court of Appeal and in 1996 he was appointed to the position of Chief Military Prosecutor at the Military Court in Padua.
He dealt with very important investigations, regarding crimes in the barracks. He carried out investigations relating to the tragedy of the Cavalese ski lift incident, for the responsibility of the Italian military commander of Aviano base, the ejection of bombs in the Adriatic Sea during the conflict in the Balkans and for alleged cases of diseases caused by depleted uranium among Italian soldiers, and investigation for serious defects in the military aircraft AMX, which has caused the loss of aircraft and the death of some pilots.
Regarding crimes that occurred during World War II, he investigated the 1945 Pedescala massacre in which about 80 people died, and was also able to track down one of the alleged criminals who was living in Argentina. He also took part in an important investigation concerning the indictment of one of the alleged perpetrators of a massacre of civilians which took place in Gorizia at the end of the Second World War.
He was consulted by the Parliamentary Commission regarding to the Cavalese ski lift incident and by the Defence Commission of the Chamber of Deputies in relation to the violence and the quality of life in the barracks. His advice helped to solve the problem of bullying in the barracks.
He has taught criminal law at the Officers School of Carabinieri in Vicenza from 1985 to 1999. In order to provide military police personnel with further education, he has spoken at High Studies Defence Center in Rome, Regional Command of Carabinieri and Guardia di Finanza in Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Rome, at the Navy Command for Commissary officers and at other Military Commands in Italy.
He has written many articles published in legal journals.
He speaks English and French fluently.
He was appointed in November 2002 as member of an UE Commission for the project Grotius 2, aimed at the constitution of a common draft for military operation of peacekeeping.
He attended two EU courses on “Training on civilian aspects of crises management”:
- the core course at Scuola Superiore di Sant’Anna in Pisa in February 2004,
- the specialization course on “The Rule of Law” at the Bernadotte Academy in Sando (Sweden) in April 2004.
He was appointed national expert in the European Mission EUJUST LEX Integrated Rule of Law mission for Iraq in Brussels in April 2005 (end date: June 2006), with the task of following up the issues related to Iraqi judiciary. He was elected in the Council of Military Judiciary where was on service from 2009 to 2013. He was appointed President of Military Court on August 2016, having competence over all the military crimes committed by military personnel in the whole State territory. On December 2017 he was appointed Military General Prosecutor at the Military Court of Cassation, apical position of the Military Judiciary, where he still acts.
Currently he is member of the Council of military Judiciary for his apical position in the military Judiciary.
He currently is:
- President of the Italian Group and, at the same time, Vice President of the Société Internationale de droit militaire et de droit de la guerre;
- Editor of the legal journal “Rassegna della Giustizia militare”.
He is a member of the Pontificia Academia Mariana Internationalis and a member of the Department of analysis, study monitoring of criminal and mafia phenomena, Vatican City.
He organizes and takes part in conferences and seminars at international level and gives conferences in legal criminal and fiscal matters at highly qualified universities, institutions and academies.
He has held conferences at the Public Health School in Padua on the theme “the culture of legality” aimed at directors of complex operating units and general managers of health companies.
On 7 March 2023, the board of directors of the Italian society of orthopedics and traumatology appointed him as a member of the SIOT committees and commissions – ethics committee for the two-year period 2022-2024.
He was President of the Fiscal Justice Court in first level in Ferrara and currently has been President of the Fiscal Court of Appeal in L’Aquila.
He is member of the scientific committee of the “Pietro Scaglione” Center for Justice Studies.
Member of the Editorial Board of the Scientific-Practical Jornal “Legaly” of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Repubblic of Armenia.